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It’s been sixteen months since my refurbishment: June 11th, 2013 was the date of the surgery that gave me more life, something that colors each day a bit differently than it might have been. Of all the factors which contributed to the 96% blockage in my arteries, diet was certainly a factor, and it would be convenient to blame the one meal I’ve had at a new burger emporium in southwest Fargo for more than a few of those percentage points. To any of you half my age or less, let this be a caution to steer clear of the fashionable eateries where food is delivered 1) on an absorptive pad to soak up all that grease, or 2) on a table that must be hosed down with 409 following each patron’s sitting.

All of this is, of course, the long way round the barn and a way to introduce the latest narrative-inducing image in the Agincourt story:

FIVE GUYS

You gotta love these dudes and have to wonder “What’s their story?”

I think this cluster of three commercial venues must be in the 600 block of South Broad; west side of the street. Until the card arrives and I can scan it in high resolution, the signs aren’t quite legible, other than “Van”–something-or-other and “Meats” on the right.

This neighborhood is near the Milwaukee Road depot, the as-yet-unnamed lumber and coal yard, and the beginning of Agincourt’s industrial quarter. There must have been a budget hotel-boarding house located in the vicinity for all those single guys—some of them standing right here—who off-loaded box cars, shoveled grain or who were teamsters in the movement of freight around the city. My kind of people. My great-grandfather Peter Markiewicz was a teamster in Lemont, Illinois, and though I never met him, those genes are a part of my makeup. They may, indeed, be among the reasons for my surgery. Do you think?